Putting a positive spin on ‘negative recall’

THE CAST of “Real Housewives of Melbourne”

One of the more controversial ploys in the advertising trade is the promotional pitch known as “negative recall.” Most commercials plug the positive traits of the product they advertise, but the counter-principle of negative recall seeks to make a lasting impact on viewer-buyers’ conscious and/or unconscious sensibilities by intentionally ticking them off with in-your-face, hard-sell gambits, over-loud jingles or irritating mascots and on-cam salesmen.

The idea operative in this admittedly risky gambit is that “recall,” even if negatively effected, is all-important because, when a buyer is about to make a purchase, it’s the advertised brand that he most vividly remembers that subliminally dictates his final choice.

The gambit may be risky, but its “cynical” effectivity is being affirmed in the field of television by the fact that an increasing number of shows are being telecast that consciously “irritate” viewers into loving them. Huh?!

It all started with “Jersey Shore,” the reality show that bared the wild and woolly lifestyle of minority US youths who were addicted to shallow, sexy and ephemeral kicks, loud talk, livid behavior, frenetic parties, one-night stands, etc.

Cheap antics

Many viewers were turned off by their cheap antics—but they continued to watch the show! Eventually, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and company became TV stars in their own right, proving that their “hate-love-hate” relationship with viewers was a “cynical” but savvy viewing “hook.”

There even came a time that Snooki changed her image after she became a young mother—she correspondingly toned down her signature cheap and loud persona, and was so successful in transforming herself that she was invited to appear on other, less intentionally “offensive” programs.

Other TV programs that ride on the cynical appeal of negative recall include the “Real Housewives” shows, which have a bunch of beautiful but loud and livid rich “bitches” screaming at one another to get what they want!

Car crash

It’s like watching a 10-vehicle car crash on the highway as it happens—a perverse “pleasure” that appeals to some of our basest viewing, peeping and kibitzing tics.

Another kinky kid on the TV block is the intentionally eyebrow-raising reality show, “Pretty Wicked Moms,” which has six good-looking mothers of very little children “demonstrating” their child-rearing “skills”—or, more properly, their shocking lack of them.

They allow their tots to guzzle sugar-rich softdrinks, neglect them to focus on shopping or chat fests with their big-busty bosom buddies, and generally refuse to allow their maternal obligations to limit their “fun” activities!

Naturally, many viewers lambast the program and its resident negligent moms for the bad example they’re setting—but, the show generates a regular viewership of close to a million pairs of startled eyes—so, it must be doing something “right!”

Fact is, there are quite a number of people out there who are attracted or even addicted to tacky, cheap and reprehensible “entertainment,” so if that’s what is offered to them, they will watch—even if they have to hold their breath to keep from gagging!

Some cynically savvy production and advertising people know this, so that’s what they dispense, secure in the thought that very few producers ever lost money from believing in the stupidity and lack of taste of some people. Come on, jump right in, the water stinks—oh, what fetid fun! (Yuck.)